Last night I came off the game Battlefield 3 to find my game had automatically logged out, as had Origin. I then found I could not access origin with my usual details.
I checked my email to find I had recieved an email from Origin telling me that my email address had been successfully changed and to contact their help system to get it sorted if I had not made that change to my account as my account had likely been hacked.

Firstly, I had to nake a new Origin account, then go through the Origin help system,........... oh goody, I could ring a help line from 9am to 10pm,............ it was now nearly half past one in the morning,............

I went to the Origin forums and tried to contact a guy through them to try and get things sorted, there are a few "reps" on there to keep things running smoothly and to help people with general enquiries.

He suggested I change my Origin language to English (US) and relog into the Origin, that would enable me to use the "online chat" facility and talk to a rep.

I did as was suggested and was faced with a waiting time of 11 minutes according to the system, ............. 80 minutes later I got to talk to the rep, a great guy called Manisha S.

Over the next 15 minuutes he talked me through how to get my account back.

Firstly, I had to give him the serial number of a game registered to my account, in this case I only have Battlefield 3 and I had bought a copy from the shop, not downloaded it so I was able to read it directly from the case. (Note to the wise, keep a note of serial numbers of products on Origin you may need them if you get hacked.)
From the serial number he could get my details up, I could confirm then the email account attached to the account, the date of birth attached to the account and could confirm I still had access to the email account registered.

The lovely Manisha then sent me an email with password reset instructions within it after changing the email address attached to the account back to mine.

He confirmed to me that my credit card details would not have been comprimised and also that once the reset was done I would have access back with all of my games still intact.

SO, thank you Manisha, you made a grown man verry happy last night. The only criticism of the system I have, is the wait time to talk to an online advisor, is nowhere near the actual amount of time you will be waiting to chat to them. Mine said 11 minutes, it turned out to be 80 minutes.

So in hindsight for other people make sure you have all of the details attached to your Origin account jotted down somewhere, it will help you in the long run! Especially the date of birth attached to the account, if you used a different one to the one you actually have then please ensure you know what it is!

My experience could have been worse!
Turned in at 5am this morning after sorting this all out, and to top that off my son is not well at the moment as well, burning up big time!

SK

Glad to hear you got it sorted out ok in the end SK and hope your son gets better soon.

Do you know how your account was hacked ?

I checked mine, all ok. At least you managed to get it back.
hope your Son gets better soon SK

Thanks Enigma, unfortunately not a clue how the hacking occurred.
I ran a virus checker through last night as well to make sure I had nothing on board.

Came up clean.

It appears there's some Russian hacking groups manually hacking accounts, not sure how they do it though!

SK

I kinda got the Feeling i should check my Account when i get home....

Hope your Son get's better soon mate...

Stef

give your son a from us all Jason...good you got your account back..

Arrgh cba wiv my account getting hacked again xx

hugs to yer lil lad xx

Hi Jason,


Hope your son will be better soon.

Great that you have your account back. Here in Belgium some east european-russian hackers are very active with hacking and phishing bank accounts.

Hey Jason ,
great you got your account back without to much trouble .

Hope your son wil feel better soon.

-Cheers, Dario